


Did You Fall (For a Shooting Star?)

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Backstory, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do angels fear to tread?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did You Fall (For a Shooting Star?)

**Author's Note:**

> For emerald_embers, because she is all full of amazing and makes me remember that I kind of still adore Cas. And I like writing weird shit about adorable angels. Darling, this makes no sense and I kind of mangled your prompt a little bit, but I hope you like it anyway.

When the Earth is born, the angels think that it is beautiful. They revel in the wonders of their Father's work; drink in every blade of grass, every flower, every grain of sand. They are breathless with the wonder of it all, singing on high with voices like blown glass, regarding their Father's miracle with rapturous eyes.  
  
And then their Father creates the humans.  
  
.  
  
At first, the praises do not stop. The world- the universe, the comets and the dwarf stars, the red giants and the blue giants and the great vastness of the black holes- everything is wonderful. It is beautiful. It truly is.  
  
They sing and sing and Castiel's voice rises alongside his brother's and sister's, rises with theirs, drunk off the beauty and the secondhand joy that drowns them whenever their Father looks down at His creations.  
  
When Cain and Abel come, they rejoice. Their Father's creations have made a mistake, yes, and have incurred their Father's wrath as a result, but He still loves them, so of course, so do they. The Garden of Eden is sealed away in layers of not-fabric that bunches and gathers and tears, out of reach from Eve and Adam and the rest of humanity, but they are still there. Still loved.  
  
The sun is freshly born, still flickering with joy, traces of God's touch still lingering in the flames. All of the world still has those traces, that morning dew's breath of God's wonder.  
  
Cain and Abel are born and they sing.  
  
And then Cain spills Abel's brains all over the earth with a jealous laugh, his brother's blood still slick on his hands when he makes his way back to his father. The angels look at each other warily, brother and sister and Father and carefully don't wonder about the uneasiness curling deep in the starlight brightness of their Grace.  
  
All the same.  
  
The singing stops.  
  
.  
  
When Castiel was still young, Lucifer taught him how to laugh.  
  
.  
  
His brother takes him to watch the civilizations rise and fall. Together they watch as storms scar the planet, as their Father's tears drown the humans and their avarice, their wickedness, and their hate. They watch the pyramids against the horizon, soaking the sun into their wings and sipping moonlight from the clouds.  
  
They watch the Tower of Babel fall and breathe in their Father's anger.  
  
Lucifer holds his hand when his Grace winds itself tight, something that isn't quite sympathy for these creatures with their bare backs and closed thoughts curling deep within him. It is unnerving, and his wings tremble with it.  
  
But there are the days when the world is lovely again. When the humans are beautiful, their prayers not colored with greed. Castiel likes these days best, because it makes their Father happy.  
  
.  
  
The world is like a ball of yarn. Forever coming unwound- cords and cords of string working itself into dreadful knots, spinning looser and looser until it is nearly all out.  
  
But it always gets wound back again, the knots worked out with deft fingers and the yarn tucked lovingly back into place.  
  
.  
  
Lucifer falls.  
  
Castiel forgets how to laugh.  
  
.  
  
Michael never holds his hand, but then, Castiel is also no longer young.  
  
He still misses it.  
  
.  
  
Dean's soul screams when he touches it.  
  
Hell is ripping him apart and behind him, his brothers and sisters are bleeding, keeping the demons at bay. He doesn't think that he was supposed to be the one to get to Dean's soul first, thinks it should have been Raphael or Uriel, he is not significant, but this- this makes him so. Just ever so.  
  
One of his brothers is screaming, and when Castiel glances back, he watches the demons tear him apart- his wings broken and near torn clear off, Grace dribbling like spittle from a demon's mouth.  
  
The demon grins and Castiel reaches- _grips_ , and pulls Dean tight to him- a little shivering ball of soul that aches with pain and love and rage and hate, blackened and terrified. He touches it, and it screams.  
  
Castiel can feel that it is afraid, that _Dean Winchester_ is afraid, but he doesn't know what to say.  
  
So he tucks it close to his Grace and ascends- up and out of ash and fear and malice and into sunshine only a little bit better. He tucks the soul back into the rotting cavity of what was once Dean Winchester's chest and presses his brow to fetid, festering flesh, thinks: _You will be all right._  
  
He watches Dean come back to life. The sun rises.  
  
.  
  
Dean bleeds when he speaks.  
  
(Castiel breathes in stardust and light, clears the ice and debris from Saturn's rings away from his wings. He pretends that he is not disappointed.)  
  
.  
  
Someone once said something about fools and places where angels fear to tread. But the thing is, angels do not fear. Or rather, they do, but they do not know it for what it is. Emotion is not particularly something they fully grasp, and though they do feel, they do not know what to do with it.  
  
What they fear and what fear truly is, they do not know.  
  
(But Castiel suspects.)  
  
.  
  
Castiel knows fear.  
  
He is halfway to human already, Dean demanding things and Sam almost but not quite asking politely and Castiel forgets himself. He is slipping- his Grace flickering around the edges. He is not who he once was. He cannot recall the taste of the Flame Nebula, or feel the texture of God's touch against his wings. He listens and there are only wisps of prayers, Jimmy Novak's voice long gone from this body.  
  
He hungers. He thirsts. Sleep pushes at the back of his eyelids and he hisses, _no, no, not yet._ Dean grins at him and straightens the collars of his coat. He shouts, he _feels_ and Castiel can still feel Dean's soul beneath his hand. Can still hear that first scream. Dean slides onto the bar stool next to him and grins, quick and filthy. Pours him another shot.  
  
Castiel lusts.  
  
(Almost there.)  
  
.  
  
Castiel is human. When Dean looks at him, Castiel can see the whites of his eyes. He cannot hear Dean's prayers anymore, they are lost to him, but sometimes, Dean talks to him. Half frantic shouts when Castiel looks a bit too longingly at a bottle of painkillers and eyes flashing bright with something like fear when Castiel laughs brokenly, propped up in his hospital bed. He mutters in his sleep sometimes, when Castiel is reclining in the back of the Impala with a bag of crisps and Sam's knuckles are white on the wheel. He speaks of white suits and roses, of guns and painkillers and girls. Most frequently, he says their names. He sounds broken.  
  
Sam looks at Castiel, and they watch Dean whimper into the collar of his jacket.  
  
Castiel reaches over the seat and shakes him awake.  
  
.  
  
Dying again, this time in human flesh- he would have thought it would hurt more. It doesn't.  
  
What does hurt is coming back to himself, gasping in the nether-space of Heaven, his wings too heavy on shoulders no longer acclimated to dealing with them. They are familiar, but not, and his Grace flickers weakly in his chest, his throat, his veins; a sad welcome back.  
  
.  
  
Angels do not know fear, but then, Castiel was not always an angel.  
  
Angels fear their Father's wrath, their Father's absence; they fear hate and they fear love. They fear the Pyramids of Giza and the great skyscrapers that stretch towards them, grasping- so much closer to heaven than any of the dung heaps had managed before. They are terrified, and they never know it.  
  
But mostly, Castiel thinks, they are afraid of being human.  
  
Castiel is an angel, but he also is not. He has the weight of his Grace back in his chest, his wings heavy and light and wonderful at his back, but he also _feels_.  
  
Angels fear humanity, yes, but Castiel is very intimate with humanity.  
  
It isn't that scary.


End file.
